My Hobbies and Interests

My interests are in my family, my church, and my various motor vehicles.

My wife Karen and I also by and sell antiques and collectibles,

as well as operate a computer consulting firm.

Some of my various vehicles, past and present, have included:

The first new car we purchased was this 1969 sedan with radio, wheel trim and auto stick shift for $1995.00. We lived in LA at the time and drove that car all across the country.

In 1970 we drove nonstop from western Nebraska to eastern Iowa (over 1,000 miles) in 23 hours. What a trip!. What a car!

We trade the '69 bug for our first Van in 1971. We were into camping (still are) so A friend and I converted it to a camper by building and installing cabinets tables etc. I even purchased a snap in screen for the rear hatch. Below is from a camping trip to western Iowa in 1972.

In 1974 we traded for this brand new 1974 Van. We were very excited about this new van because it had a more powerful (412?) engine and automatic transmission. Instead this was a major disappointment. It seams, as was explained to me at the time, the 412 engine was fuel injected in the car but carburetor in our van. The result of this was it would stall on acceleration from a stop, stranding you in the middle of an intersection until you could get it started. This was a brand new vehicle with only a few hundred miles on it. It went back to the VW dealer each time, they would "fix" it, but it would still stall. After about 10 trips to the dealer for the same problem, the service manager took me aside and told me "off the record" that the would not be able to fix the problem.

Shortly after that we sold the van, our last VW for almost 25 years.

In about 1987, Karen and I purchased this 1968 Mercedes Benz 280S. We drove this car every day, and even entered it into a MB car show. (We still have the 3^rd place trophy). This was a fine car that rode like a dream and was built like a tank, but alas it became too expensive to keep up. We sold it in 1993.

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Last Updated April 11, 1997 by Jim Nantz